The bureaucratic organization of race in deportation and Canadian immigration policy

This MRP presents a literature review on race, immigration and Black male surveillance. It situates the discourse of racialization in a historical and contemporary context, drawing from different disciplines and frameworks to contextualize the interrelationships between race, crime and immigration. This research includes a critical analysis of the history of anti-Black racism in Canadian state policies such as deportation and presents the case of Alvin Brown as an illustration This paper argues that deportation represent a racist discourse that reinforces the criminalization of Black people, specifically Jamaican males. Razack’s concept of bureaucracy highlights deportation as a process that legitimizes the removal of legal rights in the name of public security. The case of Alvin Brown is utilized as an illustration of the processes through which deportation becomes racialized and ‘Jamaicanized’ based on the reification of criminal stereotypes in policy and practice.